Guys, as someone who in the past made the same comments and arguments and respectfully understands both sides, can I please ask that we now take this elsewhere?

By all means, create a new topic and discuss, but I'd really like to keep this thread on-topic as it's the last official one we have.

Handling it now, Ringu. I fully agree with keeping the thread on-topic. I just need to make a place for the new thread to go.

On the topic of Kickstarter and refunds: Anything related to this should be handled by sending a message to Josh on Kickstarter. Posting about it here accomplishes nothing, as this isn't an official channel. That's all that needs to be said.

Who mentioned suing anyone? You americans are such litigious people and quite toxic not sure you need to start attacking people just because they ask a question. Also you automatically assume everyone is american and that american law will apply, which is unconsciously bigoted at best.

Ah, a non-American. Suddenly things make a lot more sense (not sarcastic).

In the US, there is no legal way to recoup costs outside of Suing. There is no legal or court-based mechanism that is established in the United States for the transfer of money when terms and conditions are not met. In any case of breach of contract, regardless of manner, the only way to gain that monetary compensation is by suing. Since the majority of the LT backers were from the US, I took a gamble on place of origin and went with that. That's not meant to be bigoted, just a matter of "We, the US, are severely lacking in any sort of recompense inside or outside the court that doesn't involve suing."

Not being American I was polite and asked a question before beginning any formal complaint process through kickstarter etc.

Fair enough. Since that is the case, I will give you a very sincere answer.

You've been on the forums for less than 24 hours, so let me do a brief bit of fill-in. Josh *rarely* responds and/or reads the forums. This would mean your comment would get lost to almost anyone other than the community, hence the strong response you received from us, instead of Josh. The part about KickStarter, is that they are more-or-less the negotiator of the contract between you (as a Kickstarter backer) and Josh (as his business entity). As such, any method you'll need in order to pursue about refunds on a failed or completed product need to go through whatever is associated with Kickstarter. Ltheory.com unfortunately isn't the signing partner in such a contract (even if the site itself is owned, operated, or executed by the developer). As such, reaching our to Josh there would be your best bet.

A company will have assets that can be sold to reimburse backers as much as they can be. There will be books to log how the money was spent and due dilligence to account that it was all spent correctly on the project.

Yes, this is true. Unfortunately, this is also via the route of 'suing'. Once again, in the US, even to claim assets that a business had (outside of intellectual property -- long story), you have to file a lawsuit in which it boils down to suing. Now, if this is the route that deemed the best method, all his assets would be pooled, given a monetary value, and then that value would be doled out based on the percentage the claimants had backed in the original pledge. Say Josh only had $5000 worth of assets, money, etc left. Say you donated as much as $2000 to the KS (Or for the sake of numbers, 1%). This means that you would be entitled to 1% of the remaining assets, or about $50 in this case.

I don't think you actually read the article. This one keeps coming up multiple times in the KS circles, as well as the court system. The reason this one went through and not thrown out, was because there was 1) Enough cause to determine that the project creator had deceived their backers and 2) It was also shown that the money didn't go towards the project and mostly on himself.

Re: Money on himself -- When a court rules that someone committed fraud and spent money on themself, the court *does* take into consideration the amount. If they see a creator raised $1m in capital, and bought themself a ferrari, large house, etc, it is seen above and beyond what a standard developer would make. In extensive cases, they will even bring in a market analyst to showcase the standard pay for a developer in an area, as well a remote, tele-commuting. Therefore, if a dev shows that he's within those tolerances, it's not going to be a red flag.

At the same time, (at least in the US) this instance isn't a matter of not bringing something to fruition, this is fraud--which is also a big thing for corporations and/or investment seeking individuals.

Finally, since Josh has shown that he has spent well under the standard wage on himself, as well as the offer to give out the code, one could easily argue that he committed no fraud, and that the deliverable was on-par with what he was capable of. If he happens to provide ALL the code, even the scrapped codebase from back before the dark days, it'll be even harder to prove that he hasn't fulfilled his obligation to his KS backers.

Hope this helps.

Oh yeah, as for suing; (sorry for beating a dead horse), the US has some really stupid laws, that the lawsuit must be filed in the city where the contract was executed. In this case, wherever Josh lives, as the idea behind it is that he would have to break the laws of where the business resides. Since that's in the US, he had to abide by US laws. International law is far more muddy and while I don't have as much experience there, I've definitely seen my fair share of judges annoyed at the equivalent of "someone tossing work onto their desk that isn't within their purview".

(Also thanks to Toreador for pointing out a bit more that I had skimmed over)

Thank you, that is helpful. I thought his forum would be the polite place to raise the question. I really don't understand why americans (at least on the internet) always assume the worst about everyone and just jump to attacking, I think you'd all be a lot less angry at everything if you just assumed other people were good people.

I think you have missed the point between rewards and just backing a project. If there had been no rewards promised you'd be right, but as there is there is a duty to deliver the rewards as per the contract.

You did say google it, you then criticise me reading the articles google provided? As you say I only signed up when I heard the news to find out what was going on, I don't know Josh Parnell or how he spent the money, I can say nothing good or ill about him, he could be a fraudster he could just be a person who made bold claims took people's money and then lacked the skills to follow through. I don't think its unreasonable to ask for that money back, just if say Star Citizen (another project I backed (I like space fighter sims) ) was cancelled, I would preferably want that money back, is that really an unreasonable position to take with a vendor?

I don't think it would really matter where he's based as the CJEU and other courts have proved if you are providing a service in a country (e.g your website is accessible in those place) then you are bound by those countries laws just as much as your own.

Anyway thanks again for your much nicer and helpful answer. I'll go raise it on kickstarter and see what the situation is.

Just gonna respond to a couple things for clarification sake, nothing more.

You did say google it, you then criticise me reading the articles google provided? As you say I only signed up when I heard the news to find out what was going on, I don't know Josh Parnell or how he spent the money, I can say nothing good or ill about him, he could be a fraudster he could just be a person who made bold claims took people's money and then lacked the skills to follow through. I don't think its unreasonable to ask for that money back, just if say Star Citizen (another project I backed (I like space fighter sims) ) was cancelled, I would preferably want that money back, is that really an unreasonable position to take with a vendor?

Keep in mind, a lot of what I speak from is from the viewpoint of someone in the US. If someone took donations/pledges/backings for a project and had ill-will regarding the delivering of a product, then we would define that as fraud, and of course is illegal. However, if someone's intention was to deliver a product 100%, but then was not able to fulfill it, that's not really punished (with the exception of certain circumstances). This is also why it's usually hard to prove (for better or for worse) that fraud was committed. It's easy to see a project creator committed fraud when they buy themselves exorbitant gifts while not delivering a product. However, as you said, you did just join. To save you some time scouring the forums, Josh has put forth a LOT of information documented here from numerous devlogs and communications that show he was trying to deliver a product.

The article linked shows a case of fraud, which also means the project creator didn't have intention to deliver a product worthy of the money raised. A lot of it has to do with intention -- which is really difficult to prove in our courts; but once again, with all the devlogs posted, he can easily show that fraud was not committed.

Asking for money back is a reasonable stance to take with a vendor; however that isn't as clear cut either. Say a store is going out of business. Say they sold self-made knick-knacks. One of those knick-knacks is a very detailed teapot that has gold inlaid and so forth. Maybe it cost a good $500 (and the value was there). But maybe it had a defect that caused it to leak. In this case, if the store is going out of business, do you think you'll be able to ask for that money back if there is no money to spend?

That store will already have to settle its debts first (rent, utilities, etc) as those are considered first-party debtors. You are considered a second-party debtor and while you can request money, or file a lawsuit, you'll only see anything if the first-party debtors didn't eat up all the money, and once again, based on percentages and other numbers. Very rarely you'll see any return for the same reasons it's going out of business.

As for Star Citizen; they can't seem to stop gloating over how much money they have. This, along with the fact that they're still in development (as well as not wanting to deal with the headache) makes it easier for them to refund the money. Are they legally obligated to? It's grey. One could argue they are because they're past their delivery date, but one could also argue that they have produced *something* even if it isn't yet the original idea.

Now, if Josh had say, put the money away, lived at home (thus incurring no expenses against the original amount, or trivial amount), and found the project to be too large, I'd agree with you wholeheartedly. If there was a significant amount that could be returned (no idea where I'd draw the line), I'd also be inclined to ask for money back.

I don't think it would really matter where he's based as the CJEU and other courts have proved if you are providing a service in a country (e.g your website is accessible in those place) then you are bound by those countries laws just as much as your own.

This is true for a service. However, in the US, what was being sold was defined as a product, and not a service (yes there is a difference - legally speaking). This causes some more muddy areas if the CJEU defines a service differently. This would bring about a whole bunch of extra nonsense in trying to define *what* exactly was being sold, and whether it technically translates or not. This would easily become a whole different monster all because the US defines things differently.

The basis for location laws though are on the idea that "Did he commit a crime where he executed the contract?" If the answer is 'No', then outside of extradition, there's no real way to be able to pursue any action against him, regardless of what it is.

I think you have missed the point between rewards and just backing a project. If there had been no rewards promised you'd be right, but as there is there is a duty to deliver the rewards as per the contract.

Story Time;

There was an infamous piece of hardware called the Phantom Game Console. It won many vaporware awards for well over a decade. The company was selling a new game console based off of PC hardware (similar to the XBox). They had investors who threw money at it, and many contracts they were beholden to. Now, lawsuits were eventually able to prove (to some degree) they had committed fraud.

However, they re-organized and eventually came out with a lap-board, something completely different than the original scope as well as nowhere near quality of product that was originally promised. The fact they were able to deliver anything at all was enough to wipe the fraud charges and basically have the courts say "Now you guys are all better". Sure, reputation was in the trash, but they weren't really legally beholden to the original contract.

Yes, I am summarizing *very* briefly, but this is an example of if Josh so much as made a sticker and sent it out to everyone, his obligations could be considered complete.

Second Story;

The Oculus RIft when it was on Kickstarter raised a TON of money. So much, they were able to deliver their product as well as use the leftover money to get big time investors. Eventually they sold for an ungodly amount of money.

People felt cheated because they didn't get a piece of the pie. Afterall, their money was what made the company go from a couple million to a few billion. While lawsuits were filed because the people tried to run with the idea they were basically investors, the courts came back and stated they weren't shareholders, and thus not financially obligated to get any money in return.

Also another very brief summary, but the same idea, but in reverse.

tl;dr US law is stupid in many regards for these sorts of things with too many loopholes.

Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.

Here, you could get a ban by a rogue mod just for the hell of it and since this isn't an official forum represented by the backing pledge, there is no reason why someone should unban (not saying it'll happen, just saying this is not an 'official' channel for requesting such actions regarding Kickstarter -- hell, even an associated email to KS would be more official than this forum).

That store will already have to settle its debts first (rent, utilities, etc) as those are considered first-party debtors. You are considered a second-party debtor and while you can request money, or file a lawsuit, you'll only see anything if the first-party debtors didn't eat up all the money, and once again, based on percentages and other numbers. Very rarely you'll see any return for the same reasons it's going out of business.

That store will already have to settle its debts first (rent, utilities, etc) as those are considered first-party debtors. You are considered a second-party debtor and while you can request money, or file a lawsuit, you'll only see anything if the first-party debtors didn't eat up all the money, and once again, based on percentages and other numbers. Very rarely you'll see any return for the same reasons it's going out of business.

Creditor; not debtor, DWM.

Yes, you are correct. I sometimes I get opposing terms mixed up (I knew what I meant even if that's not what I typed ). Thanks!

Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.

I really don't understand why americans (at least on the internet) always assume the worst about everyone and just jump to attacking, I think you'd all be a lot less angry at everything if you just assumed other people were good people.

This is the first time I've seen someone actively racist towards Americans. Congratulations!

I really don't understand why americans (at least on the internet) always assume the worst about everyone and just jump to attacking, I think you'd all be a lot less angry at everything if you just assumed other people were good people.

This is the first time I've seen someone actively racist towards Americans. Congratulations!

I myself incline toward the "there is only one 'race,' and that's the human race" perspective.

The notion of race is too close to the idea of being human. Once you extend "race" to mean anything other than "human," it becomes easy to start othering minority groups as sub- or non-human. And we know exactly where that leads.

The concepts of "nation" and "culture" and "civilization" work just fine for dividing people along worldview-preference lines, I think.

...aaaaaand now I'm trying and failing to find some way to link "English = polite" to the fact that the city with the most Kickstarter backers for Limit Theory was London, and I'm coming up empty. Somebody help me out here!